Net Force--Kill Chain by Jerome Preisler (e book reader txt) 📕

“Then, we’d have to call her a snow pixie, eh?”

Tai shot him an impatient glance. “She noticed me. Did you catch her reaction?”

“I did,” Kai said. “Your charm made her heart flutter.”

“This isn’t a joke.”

“No, it isn’t. I’m just not surprised. We know who and what she is.”

Tai was silent. The tiny WIMAX-enabled neurotech computer behind his right ear precisely matched the device behind Kai’s left and had transmitted his ocular video from the club’s dance floor. The same microwave broadband signal had also sent the video stream to a cloud-storage database, enabling them to review and cross-index it later on.

“Her friend...the one onstage. I want to double-check something about him,” he said. “Give me a minute.”

His eyes rolled slightly back in his head as he opened the vidfile. It was an incidental, and unavoidable, effect of the surgery. Each brother had a computer interface in the flesh above his mastoid bone, which in turn connected to a web of microthin fiber-optic threads woven into his brain. The nearness of the interface to the labyrinth of the ear—where eye activity was regulated—produced fleeting, and mostly mild, uncontrolled eye movements when it fired up the optic nerve.

Tai started at the end of the video, reversed to the moment he wanted his brother to see, and froze it. “Right there, see?” he said. “When she gets shaky. He comes over to prop her up. And he’s looking right at me.”

Kai’s eyes briefly showed their whites. “Might mean nothing.”

“If I caught his notice, it’s something.”

“So you’re worried about him?”

“No. I’m considering possibilities. Opportunities. Remember the client. If they’re satisfied, they’ll come to us directly next time. We can be clear that’s our preference.”

Kai knew where his brother was headed. “You think they would cut the Aussie out?”

“Why not? It’s win-win. Saves them broker’s fees. And gives us the whopping share he grabs for himself.”

Kai was silent. They had met Braithwaite years ago in Afghanistan, when they were with Saber Squadron of the New Zealand Special Air Service. Back then, he was on special missions for their Australian counterparts, leading a squad called the RatHawks. Their units had conducted joint ops with the Americans in the seams and gaps.

In those days, Braithwaite was all right. A tough pack leader, willing to get balls deep in things with his men. Afterward, when the twins were discharged from service, he had vouched for them with recruiters at Sharp End International, where they gained their reps.

People changed, though. Their priorities changed. At the time, Braithwaite himself was with Sharp End, running security for some high roller in Munich. A banker named Koenig. But when Koenig ran afoul of Interpol, he’d hauled ass to Gibraltar and spun off on his own, starting up Braithwaite Global. He had poached some top people from the competition, snared a lot of plum accounts. Like the Russians. These days, he preferred to let others get their hands dirty while taking a lopsided percentage of a job’s financial rewards—and full credit for its success.

Under their current arrangement with him, Tai and Kai were freelance employees, plain and simple. But eliminating the middleman would make them independent operators. And with Russia as a steady account, very wealthy ones.

Moscow had a hand in everything. Always. All around the world.

“OK,” Kai said. “How do you say we proceed?”

“Simple. We build respect with the client. Equity. That ought to be our mindset.”

“Which means what?”

“Our assignment’s to take the girl. But we’ll go the extra mile. I don’t care how many are in the kill chain. Two people, ten, it makes no difference. We do a thorough cleanup. Leave no links behind.”

Kai considered that and nodded. “OK. Tell me what’s next.”

Tai stared out the window at small clots of people trickling onto the street from the direction of the club. Though last call at the bar wasn’t for another hour or so, he was guessing the duo onstage had wrapped up their performance.

After a long minute he turned toward Kai.

“Next, brother, we take care of business,” he said.

It was 4:15 a.m. and still dark out when Duncan double-parked his Ford Transit minivan in front of Natasha’s apartment building, a three-story row house on a residential street off Graham Avenue in Brooklyn.

“Your stop,” he said. “Sure you’re gonna be all right?”

“Positive.” She glanced at him from the passenger seat. “Totally.”

He didn’t say anything. They sat with the engine running.

“There’s plenty to eat in the fridge,” she said. “You coming back once you ditch the wheels?”

He shook his head. “Got somewhere to be.”

“At this hour?”

“Uh-huh.”

Natasha looked at him. “She blond or brunette?”

“What d’you call a woman with blue hair?”

“A blue-haired woman.”

“Then she’s the blue-haired woman who bought me a drink after the show.”

She laughed. Duncan had crashed with her for the past month or so while rattling the bushes for a new apartment. Tonight being the first night of a weekend stint, they had left their equipment back at the club, sparing them a trip to the self-storage place where they normally kept it between gigs. She’d expected him to drop her off, park the van at his garage, and walk back over.

Natasha sat for a minute, then realized he was still looking at her with concern.

“What is it, Dunc?”

He hesitated. “That guy up near the stage,” he said. “Tall. Muscles. Tats.”

“Yeah. He was kind of hard to miss.”

“I thought maybe you knew him. Or he knew you.”

She shook her head. “Never saw the dude before,” she said. “So what’s the story? He a notorious werewolf serial killer?”

Duncan’s face said he wasn’t buying her act. But she didn’t want to talk about the guy.

After a while, he shifted in his seat, glancing into his side-view mirror. The street behind them remained clear of traffic.

“All right,” he said. “I better roll.”

“Blue worlds to conquer?”

“Blue paradise.” He smiled. “We were hot tonight, babe.”

“Torrid.”

“Best show ever.”

“Till tomorrow night.”

They bumped elbows, punctuating their usual routine. It instantly lightened things up.

Natasha pushed her door halfway open, paused, and glanced back over her shoulder. “Don’t